Lauren Harrison

Gut microbes affect cognition during ageing As mice age, changes in the microorganisms in their guts contribute to cognitive decline by altering signalling between the gut and brain.

Gut microbes affect cognition during ageing
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Aola Richards Sydney Insect Hub The Aola Richards Sydney Insect Hub supports early- and mid-career researchers to advance insect ecology, evolution, genomics, and applied entomology, delivering impact in biodiversity, biosecurity, a...

🐝 POSTDOC OPPORTUNITY 🐜

@sydney.edu.au has an available position for an Aola Richards Postdoctoral Fellow in Entomology 🕷️

⌚ Full-time, fixed 2 year term
🪰 Independent research programme
💵 AUD$113k + 17% superannuation

Info and how to apply in the link below 👇
www.sydney.edu.au/science/scho...

Estropausal gut microbiota transplant improves measures of ovarian function in adult mice - Nature Aging To investigate the link between the gut microbiome and ovarian health, here the authors transplant gut microbiota from estropausal female mice to young adult female mice. Microbial transplantation imp...

Surprising and notable if it holds up in humans: Extending ovary function and fertility via gut microbiome (fecal) transplant from young mice to old. estropausal mice

"a direct link between the gut microbiota and ovarian health"

www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Are you a postdoc, research scientist, non-tenure track faculty member, or lecturer who wants to attend #ABS2026? Apply to the Career Diversity Travel Award! The award helps fund scientists from less well-supported career stages.
Apply here by March 23:
www.animalbehaviorsociety.org/web/awards-c...

Brains of ‘super agers’ are still strong producers of new neurons Nature - Older people with exceptional memory have a surprisingly high number of young neurons, study finds.

Older people with exceptional memory have a surprisingly high number of young neurons

go.nature.com/4cm8VYB

Environmental exposure trains the immune system to dampen allergic responses Clean living conditions that lessen exposure to microorganisms are linked to an increase in allergies. Mouse data reveal how the environment affects allergic immune responses.

The most influential explanation of a recent surge in allergies is the hygiene hypothesis

go.nature.com/40woBkB

Changes in age-related sexual selection in a humpback whale population recovering from exploitation Using epigenetic aging, Eichenberger et al. showed that the age structure of male humpback whales shifted over 19 years, indicating signs of recovery from past exploitation. Concurrently, there was a ...

Eichenberger: young male humpback whales have higher relative mating success at low population density, suggesting lower sexual selection. Older males increase their relative share of matings as population age structure and density recover from whaling 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

@annaryba.bsky.social's paper on the neural underpinnings of intraspecific behavioral variation is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social

Highly recommend! -> Paper identifies neural substrate for variation in promiscuity among Drosophila melanogaster strains🧪

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Does early-life environment stress affect future reproductive investment? 🌊🐟
Our new paper found that when raised in fluctuating salinity, mosquitofish females produce eggs with lower protein, while older males had higher ejaculate glycogen content!

Read the full paper here doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Are current methods inaccurate in quantifying ageing & selective disappearance? We compare methods using simulations, analytical solutions, and empirical data, across life histories & methodologies (eg incomplete data). Surprising results & several recommendations. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

💥⚡⚡NEW PAPER ALERT ⚡⚡💥
Temperature rises and impacts on sexual selection; mate choice mechanisms, phenotypes, fitness in current opinions in insect science with
@evol-lab-ex.bsky.social
#TomTregenza
Paper is here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

A card announcing the call for papers stating 'Special Issue: The Integrative Biology of Reproduction Guest Editors: Etya Amsalem, Tony D. Williams and Kathryn Wilsterman. Submission deadline: 30 June 2026' with the Journal of Experimental Biology logo and the logo for the Special Issue containing an egg cell surrounded by eight sperm cells. The eighth sperm, on the top right, is penetrating the egg.

We are calling for Reviews, Commentaries or research papers for our upcoming Special Issue: The Integrative Biology of Reproduction, covering the entire reproductive process, from mate selection, mating and egg-laying or pregnancy through to parental care

bit.ly/3ZT42hY

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

NEW reporting from @19thnews.org on the Epstein files shows how academic research funding intersected with women scientists and institutional power shaped by male influence. An important story about accountability, impact and who gets protected -- and who doesn't. 19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

The adaptive significance of polyandry: a meta-analysis Abstract. Polyandry is prevalent, but the optimal patterns of mating for females remain poorly understood despite their importance for our understanding of

Compelling meta-analytic evidence for female fitness benefits of polyandry in arthropods by Yan et al.

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Led by my talented PhD student @justine-armg.bsky.social we’re running a #meta-analysis of #cross-sex-genetic-correlations in fitness components.

If you have unpublished data or know of studies that might not appear in a systematic search, please reach out, we’d love to include them!

Please share!

Parasitic braconid wasp larva spinning a cocoon after emerging from its diamondback moth host. CREDIT: Zhejiang University

A study uncovers the mechanisms by which a parasitic wasp uses a virus that it produces from its own DNA to disrupt the development of the testes of its moth host, diverting host resources that would have gone to reproduction. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/uCMe50Yf4l6

The American Naturalist classic cover

With respect to female adult performance, Chung et al. found elevated temperatures alone led to faster life histories with lower reproductive output, while early-life food shortage had no effect.

Available now ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Eusociality has independently evolved in multiple arthropod lineages

Eusociality has independently evolved in multiple arthropod lineages

Comparative analysis across 5,678 insect species shows that, when you control for phylogenetic bias, eusociality has not evolved at a faster rate in haplodiploid species. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We face two potential missteps in ecophysiology: 1) measuring animals under socially unrealistic conditions & 2) extrapolating results to nature, where social dynamics alter trait expression, plasticity, & evolutionary outcomes. Our new commentary in @jexpbiol.bsky.social : doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Among-trait covariance and cross-year repeatability for direct and indirect individual effects in producer–scrounger behaviour in wild house sparrows Abstract. Variation in traits expressed during social interactions can be attributed to direct individual effects (DIEs) of the focal individual’s identity

Happy to share that our work on direct & indirect social effects in producer-scrounger behaviours was recently published in JEB:
academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

@roriwijnhorst.bsky.social @dingemanselab.bsky.social @ali--wilson.bsky.social

Principles of experimental design for ecology and evolution Here I argue that we do not discuss experimental design, often until it is too late. This editorial seeks to begin a conversation about how and where to replicate appropriately.

The principles of experimental design in ecology and evolution has 20k downloads, but unfortunately I still have to reject ~20% of papers without review because they lack replication at the right level. More discussion among mentors and mentees please.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

This new #RSOS study of free-ranging red #deer on Scotland’s Isle of Rum found that females with stronger social bonds lived longer, produced more offspring, and had more offspring survive to two years of age than less connected individuals: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Sex-role reversal and the Bateman gradient in coucals—females benefit from mating with multiple partners Abstract. Conventional sex roles imply that males compete more vigorously with each other for fertilizations, whereas females are more selective in choosin

Our new paper on Bateman gradients in black coucals and white-browed coucals is out. Females of both species outperform males in mating and reproductive success - confirming the generality of Bateman's principle when sex roles differ.
Check it out: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

dplyr 1.2.0 dplyr 1.2.0 fills in some important gaps in dplyr's API: we've added a new complement to `filter()` focused on dropping rows, and we've expanded the `case_when()` family with three new recoding and re...

dplyr 1.2.0 is out now and we are SO excited!

- `filter_out()` for dropping rows

- `recode_values()`, `replace_values()`, and `replace_when()` that join `case_when()` as a complete family of recoding/replacing tools

These are huge quality of life wins for #rstats!

tidyverse.org/blog/2026/02...

ICYMI: Social connections are differentially related to subjective age and physiological age acceleration amongst older adults @natcomms.nature.com

Rethinking the heritability of aging The genetic contribution to human longevity is greater than previously thought

Rethinking the heritability of aging
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Warm waters undermine cryptic female choice Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

New paper out in @funecology.bsky.social y.social: Warm waters undermine cryptic female choice! We find ovarian fluid only has a positive effect on sperm function at colder temperatures and that sneaker males have faster sperm than dominant nesting males at warmer temperatures. (1/3)

New paper out today, 'Global North-South science inequalities due to language and funding barriers'

We highlight how language and funding barriers can compound inequity and offer practical recommendations to bridge these gaps.

Read the Open Access paper here! 👉 tinyurl.com/654ztk3w

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R

Responsible publication of your research!

To help you do this @nicolasgaltier.bsky.social and coauthors have put together a handy database of academia-friendly journals, DAFNEE. You can read about it in their article recently published in @jevbio.bsky.social:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

labelled diagrams of fruit fly behaviours

🛠️ December’s most-read Tools and Resources paper presents a new open-source, low-cost system that accurately tracks aggression and courtship in fruit flies: buff.ly/9dRgwve

Learn more about publishing your tools or resources with us: buff.ly/9u8ZA6k